Top Science News

August 17, 2026

Top Headlines

Low-fat Vegan Diet Helps People Lose Weight Without Eating Less

Aug. 17, 2026 A low-fat vegan diet may help people lose weight without counting calories, shrinking portions, or feeling constantly hungry. In a 16-week clinical trial, people eating mostly fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes consumed about 357 fewer calories ...

Webb’s Mysterious Little Red Dots May Be Hiding Entire Galaxies

Aug. 17, 2026 Astronomers may finally have a clue to what happens to the mysterious “little red dots” that crowded the early universe. By studying a spiral galaxy nicknamed the “Saguaro,” researchers found a compact, bright red center that closely ...

Tiny 1.7-billion-year-old Fossils Could Reveal How Complex Life Began

Aug. 17, 2026 Scientists are searching some of Earth’s oldest rocks for tiny fossils that could reveal how simple microbial life made the extraordinary leap toward plants, animals, and other complex organisms. Solving that ancient mystery may also help ...

Caltech Breakthrough Brings Fiber-optic Performance to Silicon Chips

Aug. 17, 2026 Caltech scientists have created ultra-low-loss optical pathways on silicon chips that approach the efficiency of fiber optics and dramatically outperform existing technology at visible wavelengths. The breakthrough could unlock more powerful lasers, ...

Scientists Uncover the Hidden Nerve Network Fueling Breast Cancer

Aug. 17, 2026 Researchers have uncovered a surprising way triple-negative breast cancer may turn the body against itself. Tumors appear to recruit macrophages—immune cells normally involved in healing and fighting infection—and use them to release a protein ...

Scientists Turn DNA Into a Memory Device That Uses 100x Less Power

Aug. 17, 2026 Researchers combined synthetic DNA with a semiconductor to create an ultra-low-power memory device capable of storing and processing information in the same place. The bio-hybrid technology could eventually help make AI systems and next-generation ...

Scientists Tracked Kids for 8 Years — The Screen Time Result Was Unexpected

Aug. 17, 2026 An eight-year Finnish study found that children who spent more time on screens tended to show better cognitive processing as teenagers, challenging common assumptions about screen use. Researchers ...

Animals Have Been Eating Nature’s Original Bioplastic for Millions of Years

Aug. 17, 2026 Nature invented biodegradable plastic long before humans did—and animals may have been feeding on it for hundreds of millions of years. Researchers discovered that dozens of animal species possess ...

Tiny Graphene Wrinkles Create Surprisingly Powerful Electrical Effects

Aug. 16, 2026 Scientists have discovered that tiny, sharply curved wrinkles in graphene can dramatically alter its electrical behavior, creating surprisingly strong charge separation. The finding suggests future electronics could be tuned by reshaping materials ...

A Little-known Protein May Be Fueling Alzheimer’s — And Scientists Found a Way to Block It

Aug. 16, 2026 An experimental Alzheimer’s compound prevented damaging protein clumps from forming in the brains of mice, helping nerve cells survive longer and reducing amyloid buildup. The treatment also ...

This 10-cent Heart Drug Cuts Hospitalizations by 25%

Aug. 16, 2026 A centuries-old heart drug costing less than ten cents a day could help keep heart-failure patients out of the hospital. New research suggests low-dose digoxin can reduce heart-failure hospitalizations by about 25%, potentially paving the way for ...

A Little Movement in Midlife Could Pay Off for Your Brain Years Later

Aug. 16, 2026 Exercise and healthy blood sugar levels in midlife may help slow cognitive decline decades later. Physical activity appeared especially beneficial for Mexican American adults, suggesting that some brain-protective factors may differ across ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:10am EDT

Physicists Discover a Hidden Gluon Structure Inside Protons That Could Rewrite Textbooks

Aug. 16, 2026 Physicists may have uncovered a hidden feature inside protons that helps preserve one of matter’s most fundamental properties. RHIC collision data ...

Scientists Reveal Why Walking Gets So Much Harder With Age

Aug. 16, 2026 As we age, the body appears to sacrifice walking efficiency in exchange for stability. Older adults stiffen the ankle more with each step, which may help prevent falls but also forces the muscles to ...

A New Ice Age Species Was Hiding in La Brea Tar Pits Fossils for Decades

Aug. 16, 2026 Scientists have discovered a new extinct amphibian species hiding in the fossil collections of Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits. Named Spea labreae, the Ice Age spadefoot toad is an exceptionally rare ...

A Black Hole Shredded a “super Sun” — but Something Strange May Have Survived

Aug. 15, 2026 Astronomers have witnessed a black hole violently shredding a massive star, creating one of the most energetic stellar explosions ever observed. The ...

COVID-19 Awakens Dormant Viruses — and One Is Linked to Long COVID

Aug. 15, 2026 COVID-19 can reactivate dormant viruses hiding in the body, including Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, and several herpes viruses. One poorly understood viral family was strongly associated with long ...

A 30-Year-Old Fossil Was Hiding Bones from a Mysterious Ancient Sea Monster

Aug. 15, 2026 Fossils collected in Osaka more than 30 years ago have revealed a surprise hiding in plain sight: four previously unrecognized bones from a giant Cretaceous mosasaur. Among them is the first ...

Common Food Preservative Linked to Rising Suicide Deaths Among Young People

Aug. 15, 2026 A widely available food-preservation chemical is emerging as a disturbing factor in rising UK suicide deaths, particularly among younger people and men. Researchers say the scale may be ...

A 60-Year-Old Theory About Ants, Bees and Wasps May Be Wrong

Aug. 15, 2026 Scientists have long thought an unusual genetic system helped ants, bees, and wasps evolve their extraordinary social colonies. A massive new analysis suggests that genetics alone can’t explain ...

Scientists Solve the Mystery of a Brain “switch” That Can Trigger Weight Loss in Opposite Ways

Aug. 15, 2026 Scientists have uncovered why two seemingly opposite ways of targeting the same brain receptor can both promote weight loss. In mice, activating the ...

Immune Cells Flood Into the Aging Brain, Stanford Scientists Discover

Aug. 14, 2026 Scientists have discovered that the aging human brain may be far less isolated from the rest of the body than once believed. Stanford researchers found that large numbers of immune cells from the ...

A 236-Million-Year-Old Fossil Could Rewrite the Story of Mammalian Birth

Aug. 13, 2026 Scientists may have uncovered evidence that a mammal ancestor was giving birth to live young 236 million years ago. A fossilized cynodont showed a neonatal growth line and an unusually large birth ...

A Surprising Brain Discovery Could Help Explain Why We Overeat Fatty Foods

Aug. 13, 2026 A protein inside appetite-controlling brain cells may play an important role in preventing overeating and obesity, particularly when high-fat foods are readily available. Unexpected differences ...

Women Taking Estrogen Had Fewer Signs of Alzheimer’s in Their Brains

Aug. 14, 2026 Women who used estrogen-only hormone therapy later in life were less likely to develop dementia and showed fewer signs of Alzheimer’s disease in their brains, according to a large study of more ...

JWST Spots a Bizarre “black Hole Star” 100 Billion Times Brighter Than a Star

Aug. 13, 2026 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a bizarre object from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang that looks like an enormous star but shines far too brightly ...

A Strange Crystal Made of Electrons Just Revealed Its Hidden Motion

Aug. 12, 2026 Physicists have found a new way to peer inside one of matter’s most elusive quantum states: the Wigner crystal, where electrons stop behaving like independent particles and organize into a ...

James Webb Captures a Cosmic Lion Sculpted by a Dying Star

Aug. 12, 2026 James Webb has captured a striking new infrared view of NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, revealing the dramatic aftermath of a dying Sun-like star. At its center, a scorching white dwarf is blasting ...

The Adult Brain Can Repair Itself Better Than Scientists Thought

Aug. 12, 2026 The adult brain may be far better at repairing itself than scientists once believed. In mice, researchers discovered a special group of support cells called astrocytes that respond to damaged brain ...

Dogs Can Tell Fear from Sadness — and Scientists Saw It in Their Brains

Aug. 11, 2026 Dogs may understand our emotions more deeply than scientists realized. Brain scans show that happy human faces activate regions in dogs linked to higher-level processing and reward, suggesting that ...

King Harold May Have Lost England by Backing the Wrong Pope

Aug. 11, 2026 A forgotten fragment of a lost papal letter is offering a surprising new explanation for the Norman Conquest. England may have backed the wrong pope during a bitter religious power struggle, giving ...

For 15,000 Years, Humans and Dogs Have Been Changing Each Other

Aug. 10, 2026 Dogs have been shaping—and being shaped by—humans for about 15,000 years, evolving from early partners of hunter-gatherers into an astonishing range of specialized companions. Across the globe, ...

Scientists Discover a Hidden Switch Inside Silver Nanocatalysts

Aug. 10, 2026 Silver nanocatalysts have been found to switch where they perform their most important reactions depending on whether a solid oxide cell is making electricity or hydrogen. The discovery could enable ...

Sunlight Creates Quantum Entanglement Once Thought to Require Lasers

Aug. 7, 2026 Scientists have generated quantum entanglement directly from sunlight, potentially offering a lower-energy alternative to the lasers normally used in quantum technology. Their outdoor experiment ...

A Drug Already Used for Osteoporosis Blocked Spinal Damage in a New Study

Aug. 6, 2026 Genetic changes may set off a chain reaction that causes the spine’s natural shock absorbers to harden and deteriorate. Zebrafish with a faulty collagen-related gene developed mineral buildup and ...

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Watches Earth Vanish from the Surface of Mars

Aug. 13, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover caught a striking first from Mars: Earth disappearing behind the tiny moon Phobos. Seen from nearly 195 million miles away, our planet was reduced to a single point of ...

Scientists Find Evidence for Two Origins of Life on Earth

Aug. 12, 2026 Scientists probing life’s deepest origins have uncovered evidence that the first free-living cells may have emerged not once, but twice. The findings suggest a striking possibility: life may share ...

The Sun Will Vanish Over Europe in a Rare Total Solar Eclipse: Watch Live

Aug. 10, 2026 A total solar eclipse will plunge parts of Europe into darkness on August 12, 2026, with Spain offering some of the best views. ESA will livestream the spectacle from the Javalambre Observatory, ...

The Dodo Bird Had a Secret Sensory World Scientists Are Only Now Discovering

Aug. 8, 2026 CT scans of the world’s rarest dodo skulls suggest the extinct bird may have had a stronger sense of smell, a highly sensitive beak, and a lifestyle that extended into dawn and dusk. The ...

The Sun Is Covered in Tiny Whirlpools We’ve Never Seen Before

Aug. 8, 2026 Scientists have discovered incredibly tiny plasma whirlpools swirling across the Sun’s surface, some just 20 kilometers wide. These previously invisible vortices may twist magnetic fields and help ...

Dinosaurs Became Giants — So Why Did They Never Become Tiny?

Aug. 9, 2026 Dinosaurs conquered the land at enormous sizes, but strangely, they almost never evolved into truly tiny animals. New research suggests that physiology alone can’t explain this missing miniature ...

Scientists Detect a Nuclear Reactor’s Ghostly Afterglow for the First Time

Aug. 14, 2026 Nuclear reactors may go dark, but their fuel continues producing a faint antineutrino “glow” long after shutdown. Researchers have now detected that residual signal for the first time, finding it ...